BIBLICISTS, BIBLICAL DOCTORS: A name sometimes given to those who, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, demonstrated religious truths by the Scriptures and by the authority of the Fathers, in contrast to others, who abandoned Scripture and tradition in order to give full rein to their fancy and philosophy. The most of the latter were Dominican and Franciscan monks who, since their orders held no property, had no libraries, and, owing to their unsettled and vagrant lives, had little opportunity for the study of books. Some of the Biblical doctors were scholars, and produced valuable works; but the majority of them were servile imitators of their predecessors.

BIBRA, NICHOLAS OF. See NICHOLAS OF BIBRA.

BICKELL, GUSTAV: German Roman Catholic theologian and Orientalist; b. at Cassel July 7, 1838; d. at Vienna Jan. 15, 1906. In 1862 he became privat-docent of Semitic and Indo-Germanic philology at Marburg, and in the following year went in the same capacity to Giessen. Two years later he became a convert to Roman Catholicism, was ordained priest in 1866, and from 1867 to 1874 taught Oriental languages in the academy of Münster, where he was appointed associate professor in 1871. From 1874 to 1891 he was professor of Christian archeology and Semitic languages in the University of Innsbruck, and from the latter year until his death was professor of Semitic philology at the University of Vienna. He wrote: De indole ac ratione versionis Alexandrinœ in interpretando libro Jobi (Marburg, 1862); Sancti Ephraemi Syri carmina Nisibena (Leipsic, 1866); Grundriss der hebräischen Grammatik (2 vols., 1869-70; Eng. transl. by S. I. Curtiss, 1877); Gründe für die Unfehlbarkeit des Kirchenoberhauptes (Münster, 1870); Conspectus rei Syrorum literariœ (1871); Messe und Pascha (1872, Eng. transl. by W. F. Skene, Edinburgh, 1891); Sancti Isaaci Antiocheni opera omnia (2 vols., Giessen, 1873); Kalilag und Damnag, alte syrische Uebersetzung des indischen Fürstenspiegels (text and translation, Leipsic, 1876); Metrices biblicœ regulœ exemplis illustratœ (Innsbruck, 1879); Synodi Brixinenses sœculi quindecimi (1880); Carmina Veteris Testamenti metrica (1882); Dichtungen der Hebräer (1882); Koheleths Untersuchung über den Wert des Daseins (1884); and Das Buch Job nach Anlass der Strophik und der Septuaginta auf seine ursprüngliche Form zurückgeführt und im Versmasse des Urtextes übersetzt (Vienna, 1894).